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Autokey: Desktop automation utility for Linux

Like many of you, I’ve been aware that there are several desktop automation utilities available for Linux, but until recently, I’d never used one. However, one of our readers sent me an email suggesting that I check out Autokey, so I did. (Thanks Keith) http://code.google.com/p/autokey/ Essentially, Autokey lets you assign commonly used text to a hot key; then the hot key can be used as a shortcut for the original text. For example, I live in Albuquerque, and as you might imagine, this is tedious to type and is often misspelled. Wouldn’t it be nice if all I had to do was press alt-a, instead? As a start, this is the type of thing that Autokey can do for us, and more.

Once we’ve defined a piece of text with Autokey, there are a couple of ways we can access that text. We can assign the text to a hot key, such as alt-a or ctl-alt-z. Alternatively, we can make the text available from a menu in the Autokeypanel at the bottom of the screen. Finally, we can define an abbreviation that can be used in place of the text. For example, a Perl programmer such as myself, might like to use the abbreviation, “sub” and have it defined as: